Free The Friendship Riddle by Megan Frazer Blakemore

a deep breath and then slid into the desk next to mine. I guess that meant I was the lesser of two evils.
    â€œHi,” I whispered.
    â€œHi,” she whispered back.
    And suddenly my mind exploded with a new vision, warm and familiar as the summer sun down by the water, racing together toward the ice-cream stand. Charlotte and I could do this together. We could quiz each other. I could teach her the tricks I had learned from years of watching the bees on television. She would help me to be more poised in front of the crowd. I could practically feel our shoulders pressed together as we studied the word list, her long black hair falling down toward the paper. And when we weren’t studying, we’d be chasing the clues in the books. She was curious. She had to be. It wouldn’t be like old times. Not exactly. But maybe it could even be better.
    Ms. Lawson put a packet down on Charlotte’s desk. “Sorry I was late,” Charlotte said.
    Ms. Lawson just nodded.
    Dr. Dawes explained how the school bee would work. It would be a morning assembly, which made Maybe-Max groan, and ask, “Really?”
    â€œYes, really.”
    Dev wrote the words “school assembly” in his notebook.Then, underneath, he wrote: “Wear tie.” His pen hesitated over his paper before he added: “Ask Adam how to tie a tie?” Then he crossed that last bit out with a single straight line.
    â€œIn your packet you’ll find all the rules of a spelling bee,” Ms. Lawson said. “I will be the head judge, and as you all know, I am a stickler, so make sure you know those rules. I am fond of you all, of course, but I’m not going to bend the regulations for you. No mumbling. No backtracking. No corrections. Got it?”
    We nodded. Dev wrote down: “Read all rules. Follow precisely.”
    â€œWhat if we run out of words?” Lucas asked.
    â€œWouldn’t that be wonderful!” Dr. Dawes said cheerfully. “But I don’t think you need to worry about that. The list is quite long.”
    â€œIt happened,” Lucas said. “In Kansas. At a county bee. They went through so many rounds, they used up all the words the spelling bee people had sent them, and then they went to the dictionary. And it went on so long that they sent everyone home and had to finish it another day.”
    â€œI suppose we’ll tackle that problem if we come to it,” Ms. Lawson said.
    â€œI just think you should have a contingency plan in place. I know a lot of words.” He pushed his glasses onto his face with the heel of his hand. “Then again, what am I saying? I could spell all day. The question is, can any of these people keep up with me? And the answer is, I think not.”
    â€œLucas,” Ms. Lawson said.
    â€œHumility,” Lucas mumbled back to her without much conviction.
    Charlotte played with the staple in her packet, wiggling it back and forth like a loose tooth. We could study in the library, I decided, after school. I went there most every day anyway to wait for my mom. And of course that would give us plenty of time to look for clues, too. And it would mean she wouldn’t have to give up any time with Melinda, though I hoped—well, it was too much to hope, wasn’t it, that she would give up Melinda altogether.
    Dr. Dawes and Ms. Lawson explained some more about the bee and the best ways to study. Dev wrote it all down in his neat handwriting, and I did feel a little bad for stealing away the person who could really help him. Maybe if things were going well with Charlotte, I could tell Coco that he should go help Dev, after all.
    When they finished, I reached down to pick up my backpack, then turned to ask Charlotte if she wanted to meet me at the library to study, but she was already hustling to the door. She had left her packet on the desk, though, so I wrote her name on it. I started to put it into my bag to give to her in homeroom, but Ms. Lawson